“Are you crazy? You’re still you? How . . . what the . . . you’re still my dad? In what universe?”
“I guess it isn’t exactly pretty,” Markovic allowed, as all the while Simone peered at bugs she did not recognize, a cloud of them, coppery and black with, here and there, dabs of red or blue.
It reminded Simone of a time when she was walking in Central Park and saw what she thought was an injured dog. It had been a dead dog, its crushed head entirely covered in flies.
“I feel pretty good, actually, for a dead man,” Markovic said cheerfully. “Can’t wait for my first board meeting. Hah! Look at me now! And . . .” He inclined his “head” toward her, his featureless, mouthless, eyeless “head,” and in a lower tone said, “And you would not believe what I can do to people who mess with me.”
“Are you trying to tell me this is a good thing?”
I’m talking to a cloud of bugs!
He shrugged figurative shoulders. “What have I always taught you? Don’t argue with facts; accept them, use them, profit from them.”
“I’m . . . I’m getting a drink.”
“Kind of early, isn’t it?”
“Are you seriously giving me grief over drinking? My father is an infestation and I’m . . . something, I don’t know what! I kind of think I should be able to have a drink!” She walked on wobbly legs to the sideboard, poured the first thing she saw into a glass, and swallowed it in a single, fiery gulp.
“You know I’ve always taken a very liberal approach to your drinking, but—”
“Shut up!” Simone roared. “Shut up! Are you out of your mind? What’s next, you want to ask me why I’m getting a D in calculus?”
“You’re getting a—”
“No! No! No! You don’t get to pretend this is normal! This is not normal and it’s not okay.”
“I can see in 360 degrees,” Markovic said. “Front, back, up, down, I see it all. The sense of power . . . just imagine what you and I could do together.”
“Give people nightmares?” Simone shot back.
“You don’t get it because all you ever do is listen to your wimp professors,” Markovic said, somehow conveying real anger. “This is power, Simone! Power! They tried to kill me, but I got them first, and oh boy, did I ever get them.”
Simone felt her stomach churn. Too much! Her breath came in shallow gasps. Her heart pounded in a thumping, irregular beat. “What have you done?”
Markovic laughed, a dry sound like corn husks rubbing together. “My little buggies are not exactly, um, sanitary. They seem to be carriers of some kind of disease, and man, you should see how fast it works! All I had to do was think: Danger! And they attack. Hah!”
Simone was speechless. Her mother had tried to pretend everything was normal. Now her father was actually trying to convince her it was a good thing that he was—permanently—a malicious disease vector. Had it all been less deadly serious, she might have laughed; it was such a perfect microcosm of her parents: a mother in denial, a father always looking out for himself.
“I came for cash,” Simone said. “They’ll come looking for me, for anyone who got away. I can’t use a credit card.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Simone. You’ll stay here with me. We’ll work together. We’ll be a team and take all the sons of bitches down! You’re always talking trash about the powers that be—well, the powers that be just murdered us in a field.”
Finally, an emotion she understood. He was angry. But Simone shook her head. “Dad, no. When I talk about people with wealth and power, I just want to see poor people not being screwed all the time. I’m not into hurting anyone. Do you even know me?”
Markovic’s bug cloud buzzed. It was, Simone realized with a shudder of disgust, an expression of disappointment, even dismissal. He was actually annoyed at her! Annoyed that she did not instantly see all the wonderful possibilities in having a gross mutant for a father.
“Well, I have some thinking to do,” Markovic said. “I’ll be in my office when you’re ready to talk sensibly. Now, go to your room.”
“Go to my room?” Her mouth hung open in disbelief.
Go to my room?
Markovic stabbed a vague finger in the direction of the room she used when at her father’s place. “Now, young lady. Go. To. Your. Room!”
Simone went to her room, slammed the door behind her, and just stood staring at her plush, queen-sized bed and her books and her desk with the Apple monitor glowing softly, open to a web page on the filmography of Edgar Wright.
I’ve gone crazy. I’ve lost my mind!